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Jan. 7th, 2011 10:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
letpeoplestareTable of Contents:
- Player Basics
- Character Basics
- Physical Appearance
- Abilities
- Strengths/Weaknesses
- Personality
- History
- Samples
PLAYER;; Out Of Character Information!
NAME;; Fru
DESIRED CHARACTER;; In Character Information!
CHARACTER NAME;; Abigail "Abby" Sciuto
CHARACTER JOURNAL;;![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
letpeoplestare
CHARACTER AGE;; approx. 29 as of Season 7
FANDOM;; NCIS: Naval Criminal Investigative Service
TIMELINE;; Early in episode 7x22 "Borderland," as Abby is packing to go to a forensic symposium in Mexico
PHYSICAL APPEARANCE;;
Abby is a caucasian female and stands 5'10" (before shoes) with shoulder-length black hair and green eyes. She's naturally fair-skinned, but lots of sunscreen and pale-toned make-up augment the effect. She is a fashionista of the goth persuasion, so her make-up and clothing are rarely of the over-the-top variety that some hardcore goths favor. The exception to that are her 10 tattoos:
Against all first impressions, she is still a professional at her job. Thus, she doesn't wear earrings at all while working, and any necklaces or bracelets she does wear don't dangle or inhibit her work. She favors black and white of course, but also red and pink. She mixes and matches more "mainstream" clothes with the gothic lolita side of things. [Here's a close-up glamour shot] and [the kinds of things she wears to work]
ABILITIES;;
Nothing magical. There is, however, a reason I plan to post a Permissions post for her: 4th walling. NCIS as a show and Abby as a character often show an awareness of Western Pop Culture. It won't be a problem if someone doesn't want her to recognize them as it isn't a major part of her character - not as much as Anthony DiNozzo, for example.
Aside from the ability to babble almost endlessly, her most impressive skills require some technical equipment: lab, computer, and lots of software. A break-down of her most common case contributions is as follows:
STRENGTHS/WEAKNESSES;;
Abby is smart, but still very social. She's friendly and outgoing, and only snipes back at people who offend her first, usually subtle (or not-so-subtle) digs about how a goth could possibly be a good scientist. She's very loyal to her best of friends - coworkers and outside of work - and enjoys hanging out with them at clubs and bars and concerts. While not an official Agent of NCIS, Abby has been involved in a few tough situations through her line of work, and thus is emotionally more resilient than most normal citizens in the face of danger. She's very focused and knowledgeable when it comes to her forensics, and blogs about it on a (closed forum) website for forensic scientists. She has a strong sense of justice and a liberal mindset. She speaks rusty Spanish, a little French, and a slew of Latin root words thanks to her science background, in addition to being fluent in American Sign Language.
As for her weaknesses, she can babble with the best of them, and usually needs cut off or she'll go on tangents forever. Sometimes she can read a look from someone else that says the situation is serious and cut herself off, but not often. It's not as bad as it used to be, but Abby still gets very worried about her friends when they're injured in the line of duty. Despite her best efforts, she also takes death of a colleague very hard. She feels the most out of anyone in the main cast. Accusations of betrayal don't phase her, because she has absolute confidence in the core cast at the time I'm pulling her from, but real proof of deception bothers her immensely. Her #1 Rule is "You do not lie to Abby." She can be very vindictive, forceful in her tone, and bull-headed when she gets genuinely upset. While Abby has shown that she can handle herself in small scuffles when someone tries to attack her, she knows she's completely out of her league as soon as a gun is drawn on her.
PERSONALITY;;
Above all else, Abigail Sciuto is a demonstrative personality. She has a natural zest for life that was further cultured into a generally expressive nature as a result of being a hearing child born to two deaf parents, born and raised in New Orleans Louisiana. She is fluent in sign language, and, as all signers know, the language is conveyed best with exaggerated facial expressions & dramatic hand gestures. In turn, all of Abby's emotions typically come with physical accompaniments - she clasps her hands and shakes them when she is upset, she hugs people when she's happy, she punches people in the shoulder when she is upset, she fist-bumps when she is proud/excited about some forensic work being accomplished (sometimes this also manifests in a shoulder-punch), and slapping someone across the face is the least she's done when she's genuinely angry. In addition to becoming fluent in ASL from a young age, Abby also learned the art of lip-reading, which she was never very good at but struggled to improve her skills for the sake of her work with NCIS.
Abby's interest in forensics began at a young age, because her family lived near "a lot where they took the gnarliest car wrecks." There, she would try to guess what sorts of accidents made which impacts. It wasn't about obsessing with death - it was about figuring things out, the cause and the effect, piecing together puzzles. Abby's faith in forensic science is strong, but she knows what her job is - to back up the work of Gibbs' Major Case Response Team. Thus, she regularly works on a case until the evidence is airtight, sometimes quadruple-checking her own work or asking McGee to look it over for her. (A related reason is her discomfort with testifying.) One of her greatest frustrations is when she hits a wall where the evidence doesn't match up, but she has also worked on so many cases that she knows many different reasons why the evidence might not be matching up. She works as long as a case is open, often pulling 16 hour days, or all-nighters with intermittent naps on a cot / pull-out bed in her lab. A caffeine addiction helps with that.
While she firmly believes in rock-solid evidence in her work, she is also extremely interested in things that have no evidence to contradict them: the supernatural. She is intrigued by mummies, curses, grave-robbing, crop-circles, and feng shui. She has said she checks her horoscope every day, knows a great deal about witchcraft & voodoo (she plays with voodoo dolls to relax), and knows how to read tarot cards ("It just helps me think"). While seemingly stereotypical in her obsession with death, it's much like what got her interested in forensics in the first place. It's more about cause and effect, and that kind of thinking outside of the box is what makes her a better forensic scientist, really; she never rules anything out. Her philosophy when dealing with large amounts of evidence: "no plan of attack, just go. Find along the way. If you look for something specific, then there's only one right answer."
Abby used to be an anarchist, and her reason for no longer being one speaks volumes about her character: "Too many rules." She is very much a free spirit in many ways, not just her gothic fashion sensibilities. She's had casual sex with friends before, has had at least 10 discrete exes, has something of an on-off/open relationship with McGee, dated a person with dwarfism, has a transsexual best friend, is into BDSM, has 10 tattoos on her body, can't stand classical music, prefers rock/metal/trance music & concerts, sleeps in a coffin, and wears funeral attire to church - yes, church, probably Catholic since she carries a rosary in her purse, despite being from the south. In addition to all that, she is in a bowling league with nuns from her church, volunteers with Habitat for Humanity, enjoys Vegetarian food (though probably doesn't follow it strictly), and loves stuffed animals as much as normal animals.
She is also undeniably loyal to Gibbs and her NCIS family. As McGee once said, in order of her priorities: "You love this country, you love NCIS, you love your lab - you'd never betray Gibbs." Another good quote to represent that, from Abby's own mouth, is: "How could you think that I would be leaving? Cuz I got a little mad? We're family - that's allowed." Tease them all, most certainly and almost daily, but loves them like family.
A study in contrasts. The "energizer bunny" of forensics. A sweet, smart, sassy young woman from the south. She is Abby Sciuto: girl, geek, and goth with a gift of gab.
HISTORY;;
NCIS takes place in a Near-Earth Universe, predominantly in the Washington DC area and the surrounding states (Virginia and Maryland most often) with occasional jaunts elsewhere within the states or abroad. Each season approximates one year of real time, with built-in allocations for the months between seasons (i.e. acknowledgment of the time passing) give or take a few episodes around the end of one season and the start of the next.
Abby's age I deduced from two canon points: in Season 3 (2005) she made a remark that made her at least 25 years old (born in 1980 or earlier). Then there was a remark in Season 7 (2009) that called Abby "in her late 20s" (no more than 29, or born in 1980 or later). This is why I believe she was born in 1980. All we really know about her early years is that she grew up in New Orleans, has one younger brother, and is a hearing child born to deaf parents - whether or not her brother is deaf is unknown.
NCIS was not Abby's first job. The short list in my guessed chronological order is: newspaper route (11 years old), road-kill collector, ski lift operator, telemarketer for kitchen knife sets (Sophmore year of HS or College), and medical waste incinerator operator. She has three undergraduate degrees from Louisiana State University in Sociology, Criminology, and Psychology and graduated with full honors. If Abby graduated High School early (around age 17, with college-track classes under her belt), then she could have finished all of her Undergraduate work before starting at NCIS, and possibly begun her graduate work. Abby earned her Master's Degree from Georgia State University in Criminology and Forensic Science, her Master's Thesis being on spontaneous human combustion. I think it's therefore entirely possible she finished her Master's Degree while working at NCIS, through mostly online classes, some practical credit hours earned at her job, and then traveling back to Georgia State a few times to present her Master's Thesis. No matter how she did it, she became regarded as a prodigy in her field within a few years of publishing articles related to her work with NCIS - the ultimate test of theory and practical application among scientists. Midway through Season 7 (2009), she implied that she had since earned her PhD in Chemistry.
Series Highlights
- Age 20 (Speculation): Abby joins the NCIS DC Branch Office as Forensic Specialist for Gibbs's Major Case Response Team, then comprised of Stanley "Stan" Burley, Vivian "Viv" Blackadder, and Brent Langer. Ducky was already Chief Medical Examiner for the NCIS DC Branch Office, and Gerald Jackson was his assistant in Autopsy. At some point, Stan Burley is moved to a Seahawk as an Agent Afloat, but Gibbs doesn't replace him. We know canonically that Abby started at NCIS before Tony and well after Ducky, we just don't know an exact date; in the series, she recognized Brent & Stan but Tony didn't.
- Age 21 (Canon): When Brent Langer moves to the FBI, Tony joins Gibbs's MCR Team alongside Viv. This is 3 years after Gibbs's undercover work in Europe with Jenny Shepherd, 9 years after he started working for NCIS in 1992 (the same year they changed from NIS to NCIS), and 10 years after the murder of his daughter and first wife when he was still a Marine Gunnery Sergeant.
- Age 22 (Pilot): The pilot episodes of NCIS appeared on the show JAG (same producer as NCIS) in two parts. Gibbs, Tony, Abby, Ducky, Viv, & Gerald (briefly) were all there for the case. Abby had to testify in court as part of the case, clearly unhappy about it. At the end of the pilot, Viv was fired.
- Age 23 (Season 1): Caitlin Todd joins the team at season start. Timothy McGee from the Norfolk Branch assists the team intermittently, and late in the season Jimmy Palmer joins as Ducky's assistant in the field - Gerald Jackson remains his assistant in the Autopsy floor at NCIS HQ. At the end of Season 1, an unknown man infiltrates Autopsy to retrieve something; takes Ducky, Gerald, & Caitlin hostage; and manages to escape with his item, leaving his hostages alive, but Gerald severely wounded. The assailant doesn't register in any of NCIS's facial recognition databases, much to Abby and Gibbs's frustration.
- Age 24 (Season 2): McGee joins the team to lead any technical / hacking / etc issues, with Abby on support rather than as another primary job. His reassignment was almost entirely due to the team needing help finding the "unknown man" from the end of last season. Near the end of Season 2, Tony nearly dies from an anthrax virus mailed to NCIS. Then, Caitlin dies in the line of duty, killed by the same mystery man, now known as Ari Haswari.
- Age 25 (Season 3): In the immediate aftermath of Caitlin's death, Jenny Shepherd takes over as Director of NCIS and brings in someone to help "find" Ari, not kill him: Ziva David. Ari had supposedly been playing loyal to a terrorist organization on behalf of the Mossad (allies to the CIA), but Gibbs feels Ari was playing Mossad on behalf of the terrorists. As far as anyone else knows, Gibbs kills Ari, and afterwards Gibbs trusts Ziva immensely for no good reason. In reality, she had shot Ari - her brother - when Gibbs's instinct about Ari proved true. At Caitlin's funeral, Abby observes a New Orleans tradition of playing a dirge before the funeral, but more upbeat jazz while walking away from the body. It wasn't until a little later that Ziva joins Gibbs' team as Caitlin's replacement - while officially retaining her status as a Mossad Liason. Abby doesn't warm to her at all at first. Jimmy Palmer becomes Ducky's new full-time assistant in the field and Autopsy, replacing Gerald. Abby was assigned an assistant - Charles "Chip" Sterling - by Dir. Shepherd, but he turned out to have a vendetta against Tony. Abby successfully fended him off when he tried to kill her, and afterwards Dir. Shepherd promised not to meddle with her working conditions again. Not long afterwards, someone else targeted Abby due to her involvement in a case that had gone to court; once again, she fended off her would-be murderer. At the end of Season 3, Gibbs went through a traumatic bout of temporary amnesia while on a case, and it eventually lead to a case resolution that Gibbs was not happy with - sacrificing a whole Navy ship in order to keep things out of the public eye. In protest, Gibbs quit, not saying a word to Abby, just kissing her cheek.
- Age 26 (Season 4): For the few months that Gibbs was in Mexico with his old boss Mike Franks, Tony was the Team Lead, and Michelle Lee joined as the team as the new "probie" (Probationary Special Agent, or newest field agent). Gibbs returns twice to help the team, and eventually returns permanently in the 3rd episode; Michelle Lee leaves the team when he rejoins. It's revealed that McGee wrote a book about everyone at NCIS under the pen-name Thom E. Gemcity. Abby has a relationship with Marty Pearson - a man with dwarfism - for about 11 weeks or so. She nearly died of carbon-monoxide poisoning from a 2nd-generation AI vehicle that was used to kill a navy code geek. Midway through the season, there's a case involving an arms dealer code-named La Grenouille. However, he's an informant for the CIA and NCIS is ordered to drop their case, so that it doesn't become another Ari incident. While Gibbs was in Mexico, Tony had been privately asked by Dir. Shepherd to go undercover, try to date La Grenouille's daughter, and eventually to meet the man himself. At the end of the season, as Tony finally meets him, Abby is enlisted for an off-the-record process by Director Jenny Shepherd and is bewildered as to why the chain of evidence wouldn't be important, as well as why she's not allowed to tell Gibbs about it.
- Age 27 (Season 5): At the start of the season, Tony is thought dead briefly after a bomb blows up his car. La Grenouille meets with Dir. Shepherd and pleas for asylum, but she refuses and someone kills him. This isn't discovered until several weeks later, when Leon Vance arrives from San Francisco to conduct an internal investigation into La Grenouille's death, on the testimony of La Grenouille's daughter. Gibbs thinks they're after Dir. Shepherd, the testimony targets Tony, and in the end CIA Agent Trent Kort (alias) takes the claim, complete with some official document showing the hit was sanctioned. Jenny Shepherd is killed working a hunch on an old case while in Los Angeles and, when the reason comes to light, Gibbs burns her house down to bury the case at last. A few days later, after Jenny Shepherd's funeral, she is formally replaced by Director Leon Vance, who uses Jenny Shepherd's behind-the-scenes work (interfering with the CIA's La Grenouille operations and then what lead to her death) as an excuse to break up Gibbs' team. Tony is assigned to a ship, Ziva is sent home since she'd been the Mossad liaison on Jenny's word, and McGee is assigned to the basement Cybercrime unit.
- Age 28 (Season 6): Abby misses the group so much that she counts the days they're apart, and her last count is 126 days as of the 1st episode in S6. Gibbs's new team comprises Michelle Lee back from the Legal Deptartment again, Daniel Keating from the Cybercrime unit, and a familiar face to Abby: Brent Langer from the FBI. Vance's ulterior motive in breaking up the team is revealed around the time they reunite: to catch a mole within NCIS. Notably, Abby is trusted so much by Gibbs not to be the mole that he and Vance include her in a plot to catch the real mole by pegging Abby as the primary suspect, luring the real mole into a false sense of security. A situation occurs in which Brent Langer is claimed to be the mole by Michelle Lee, and she kills him ostensibly in self-defense. Turns out the real mole is Michelle Lee, but she was being blackmailed with the life of her younger sister, and dies helping NCIS solve the case. At the end of Season 6, Ziva's split alliance between the Israeli Mossad and NCIS is tested. A Mossad officer named Michael Rivkin - whom Ziva was more or less dating, as much as secret agents can - had been operating under the radar for Mossad in the US, and for his crimes was under investigation by NCIS. Before the case can conclude, Tony ends up killing Rivkin, thus a major reason for Ziva's torn feelings. Mossad wins out as Ziva feels an obligation to finish the case Rivkin had started, thereby relinquishing her position with NCIS.
- Age 29 (Season 7): By the second episode of Season 7, Ziva is rescued from her failed Mossad mission in Africa by NCIS, rescinds her ties to Mossad, and starts working on becoming an American citizen so she can be a formal member of Gibbs's team. Tony and McGee get a few good laughs out of calling Ziva "probie" for awhile. Around the time of episode 7x09, Abby also visited Los Angeles to assist in a case ("Random on Purpose," NCIS: LA) where supposedly no forensic evidence was left at each crime scene.
SAMPLE JOURNAL POST;;
[text first]
I don't remember processing any hallucinogens today, so unless I got kidnapped again - the dating Spider-man analogy is way too appropriate these days - this is just way too weird. Maybe this is what Tokyo looks like nowadays - I mean, they're supposed to be surpassing us sometime soon.
Oh that thing that passed by me looked so freaking cool. I wish I had my camera - got a snapshot on my phone, but there's no substitute for quality source imagery. McGee would love this place - Techno Techvana practically. Good inspiration for another book. Tony'd probably crack a Metropolis joke or two. McGee might correct him it's more like Coruscant. Fifth Element was more my style, anyway.
[video test, after the text]
[up close & inquisitive tone of voice] Is it working? Awesome, looks like it's pretty similar. Well, uh - hello world! [wave, then matter-of-fact tone] Abby Sciuto here, NCIS Forensic Specialist. Would anyone like to tell me what the biohazardous material is going on here?
SAMPLE RP POST;;
"Wait! WAIT!"
Abby's style of running was more like a hobble in her 3-inch-heel boots. Part of it was she always ran like that, knees close together whenever she wore skirts. The other reason was that she was carrying her parasol umbrella and camera-phone in her right hand, her suitcase in her left, and her purse slung over her right shoulder. She thought she'd be heading for Mexico, but instead had wound up in this place. So far, she hadn't seen a single human being, so had taken to chasing some of the robots. Knowing McGee, he'd never believe what she was seeing here, so she wanted evidence, and possibly a hint as to where 'here' was.
After her 3rd attempt, she sat down on a curb with a sigh, all of her things falling around her. "Well, Abigail... we're not in Kansas anymore, that's for sure." She pulled out the little Blackberry-iPhone-comm device. She'd already figured out how to customize a wallpaper - a bullet shattering glass, or something - as well as find a default ringtone - a church bell's toll. She smirked to herself, then started going through the directories she hadn't explored yet. "Time to find out where." Soon, she was fully engrossed and oblivious to the fact that she wasn't actually in her lab back in DC, and focused exclusively on gathering as much intel as she could about her current whereabouts. "Gibbs will find me, or at least contact me first. And when he does, I need to be able to give him everything."
- Player Basics
- Character Basics
- Physical Appearance
- Abilities
- Strengths/Weaknesses
- Personality
- History
- Samples
PLAYER;; Out Of Character Information!
NAME;; Fru
DESIRED CHARACTER;; In Character Information!
CHARACTER NAME;; Abigail "Abby" Sciuto
CHARACTER JOURNAL;;
letpeoplestareCHARACTER AGE;; approx. 29 as of Season 7
FANDOM;; NCIS: Naval Criminal Investigative Service
TIMELINE;; Early in episode 7x22 "Borderland," as Abby is packing to go to a forensic symposium in Mexico
PHYSICAL APPEARANCE;;
Abby is a caucasian female and stands 5'10" (before shoes) with shoulder-length black hair and green eyes. She's naturally fair-skinned, but lots of sunscreen and pale-toned make-up augment the effect. She is a fashionista of the goth persuasion, so her make-up and clothing are rarely of the over-the-top variety that some hardcore goths favor. The exception to that are her 10 tattoos:
| Spider-web & spider :: on the left side of her neck | Gigantic, stylized cross :: on her lower back |
| R.I.P. :: upside down to Abby, readable by other person; left upper arm, below bracelet zone & Tat #1 | Smiley-face ☺ :: on middle finger of her right hand; eyes are nearer to her joint, smile nearer to her nail |
| Three dots (therefore sign) :: left ankle, outside | Smiley-face, black lines & green skin :: right ankle, inside |
| Delta - upside down delta - delta :: left wrist | Letter P :: right arm, below bracelet zone |
| stick figure jumping for joy with a sort of halo :: facing towards spine; on left shoulder-blade; mirror image of the right shoulder's tattoo | stick figure jumping for joy with a sort of halo :: facing towards spine; on right shoulder-blade; mirror image of the left shoulder's tattoo |
Against all first impressions, she is still a professional at her job. Thus, she doesn't wear earrings at all while working, and any necklaces or bracelets she does wear don't dangle or inhibit her work. She favors black and white of course, but also red and pink. She mixes and matches more "mainstream" clothes with the gothic lolita side of things. [Here's a close-up glamour shot] and [the kinds of things she wears to work]
ABILITIES;;
Nothing magical. There is, however, a reason I plan to post a Permissions post for her: 4th walling. NCIS as a show and Abby as a character often show an awareness of Western Pop Culture. It won't be a problem if someone doesn't want her to recognize them as it isn't a major part of her character - not as much as Anthony DiNozzo, for example.
Aside from the ability to babble almost endlessly, her most impressive skills require some technical equipment: lab, computer, and lots of software. A break-down of her most common case contributions is as follows:
- Audio/Visual analysis, matching, reconstruction, & syncingIn addition to handling all of that with her equipment, Abby is quite aware of how to do her work the old-fashioned way: distilling blood work, matching fingerprints and tire tracks, etc. It just takes longer - roughly 72 times longer, by her calculation at one point. As a result, she can also homebrew alcohol with the right equipment. The only other non-technical skill she has is lip-reading. She is by no means an expert, but she can single out common and non-complex words (i.e. few syllables).
- Animation to theorize events of the crime scene
- Background research on Persons of Interest
- Back-tracing phone and internet signals
- Ballistics analysis & matching
- Blood, DNA, & Fluid analysis & typing
- Bomb material & creation pattern signature analysis
- Component Isolation of unknown substances and subsequent Toxicology Reports
- Computer, File, & Schematics (Code/AI) Analysis
- Crime Scene Overall Analysis (putting all the pieces together or noting discrepancies)
- Encryption & Cipher Un-scrambling
- Facial recognition & reconstruction and Image Enhancement
- Fake ID manufacture
- Fiber, Hair, Paint, & Paper Analysis
- Fingerprint matching
- "Hacker" but more second- or third-rate; not as good as McGee, but pretty good all the same
- Tire-track Analysis
- Undercover work (in small ways, usually, sometimes only in voice)
- Weapon analysis
STRENGTHS/WEAKNESSES;;
Abby is smart, but still very social. She's friendly and outgoing, and only snipes back at people who offend her first, usually subtle (or not-so-subtle) digs about how a goth could possibly be a good scientist. She's very loyal to her best of friends - coworkers and outside of work - and enjoys hanging out with them at clubs and bars and concerts. While not an official Agent of NCIS, Abby has been involved in a few tough situations through her line of work, and thus is emotionally more resilient than most normal citizens in the face of danger. She's very focused and knowledgeable when it comes to her forensics, and blogs about it on a (closed forum) website for forensic scientists. She has a strong sense of justice and a liberal mindset. She speaks rusty Spanish, a little French, and a slew of Latin root words thanks to her science background, in addition to being fluent in American Sign Language.
As for her weaknesses, she can babble with the best of them, and usually needs cut off or she'll go on tangents forever. Sometimes she can read a look from someone else that says the situation is serious and cut herself off, but not often. It's not as bad as it used to be, but Abby still gets very worried about her friends when they're injured in the line of duty. Despite her best efforts, she also takes death of a colleague very hard. She feels the most out of anyone in the main cast. Accusations of betrayal don't phase her, because she has absolute confidence in the core cast at the time I'm pulling her from, but real proof of deception bothers her immensely. Her #1 Rule is "You do not lie to Abby." She can be very vindictive, forceful in her tone, and bull-headed when she gets genuinely upset. While Abby has shown that she can handle herself in small scuffles when someone tries to attack her, she knows she's completely out of her league as soon as a gun is drawn on her.
PERSONALITY;;
Above all else, Abigail Sciuto is a demonstrative personality. She has a natural zest for life that was further cultured into a generally expressive nature as a result of being a hearing child born to two deaf parents, born and raised in New Orleans Louisiana. She is fluent in sign language, and, as all signers know, the language is conveyed best with exaggerated facial expressions & dramatic hand gestures. In turn, all of Abby's emotions typically come with physical accompaniments - she clasps her hands and shakes them when she is upset, she hugs people when she's happy, she punches people in the shoulder when she is upset, she fist-bumps when she is proud/excited about some forensic work being accomplished (sometimes this also manifests in a shoulder-punch), and slapping someone across the face is the least she's done when she's genuinely angry. In addition to becoming fluent in ASL from a young age, Abby also learned the art of lip-reading, which she was never very good at but struggled to improve her skills for the sake of her work with NCIS.
Abby's interest in forensics began at a young age, because her family lived near "a lot where they took the gnarliest car wrecks." There, she would try to guess what sorts of accidents made which impacts. It wasn't about obsessing with death - it was about figuring things out, the cause and the effect, piecing together puzzles. Abby's faith in forensic science is strong, but she knows what her job is - to back up the work of Gibbs' Major Case Response Team. Thus, she regularly works on a case until the evidence is airtight, sometimes quadruple-checking her own work or asking McGee to look it over for her. (A related reason is her discomfort with testifying.) One of her greatest frustrations is when she hits a wall where the evidence doesn't match up, but she has also worked on so many cases that she knows many different reasons why the evidence might not be matching up. She works as long as a case is open, often pulling 16 hour days, or all-nighters with intermittent naps on a cot / pull-out bed in her lab. A caffeine addiction helps with that.
While she firmly believes in rock-solid evidence in her work, she is also extremely interested in things that have no evidence to contradict them: the supernatural. She is intrigued by mummies, curses, grave-robbing, crop-circles, and feng shui. She has said she checks her horoscope every day, knows a great deal about witchcraft & voodoo (she plays with voodoo dolls to relax), and knows how to read tarot cards ("It just helps me think"). While seemingly stereotypical in her obsession with death, it's much like what got her interested in forensics in the first place. It's more about cause and effect, and that kind of thinking outside of the box is what makes her a better forensic scientist, really; she never rules anything out. Her philosophy when dealing with large amounts of evidence: "no plan of attack, just go. Find along the way. If you look for something specific, then there's only one right answer."
Abby used to be an anarchist, and her reason for no longer being one speaks volumes about her character: "Too many rules." She is very much a free spirit in many ways, not just her gothic fashion sensibilities. She's had casual sex with friends before, has had at least 10 discrete exes, has something of an on-off/open relationship with McGee, dated a person with dwarfism, has a transsexual best friend, is into BDSM, has 10 tattoos on her body, can't stand classical music, prefers rock/metal/trance music & concerts, sleeps in a coffin, and wears funeral attire to church - yes, church, probably Catholic since she carries a rosary in her purse, despite being from the south. In addition to all that, she is in a bowling league with nuns from her church, volunteers with Habitat for Humanity, enjoys Vegetarian food (though probably doesn't follow it strictly), and loves stuffed animals as much as normal animals.
She is also undeniably loyal to Gibbs and her NCIS family. As McGee once said, in order of her priorities: "You love this country, you love NCIS, you love your lab - you'd never betray Gibbs." Another good quote to represent that, from Abby's own mouth, is: "How could you think that I would be leaving? Cuz I got a little mad? We're family - that's allowed." Tease them all, most certainly and almost daily, but loves them like family.
A study in contrasts. The "energizer bunny" of forensics. A sweet, smart, sassy young woman from the south. She is Abby Sciuto: girl, geek, and goth with a gift of gab.
HISTORY;;
NCIS takes place in a Near-Earth Universe, predominantly in the Washington DC area and the surrounding states (Virginia and Maryland most often) with occasional jaunts elsewhere within the states or abroad. Each season approximates one year of real time, with built-in allocations for the months between seasons (i.e. acknowledgment of the time passing) give or take a few episodes around the end of one season and the start of the next.
Abby's age I deduced from two canon points: in Season 3 (2005) she made a remark that made her at least 25 years old (born in 1980 or earlier). Then there was a remark in Season 7 (2009) that called Abby "in her late 20s" (no more than 29, or born in 1980 or later). This is why I believe she was born in 1980. All we really know about her early years is that she grew up in New Orleans, has one younger brother, and is a hearing child born to deaf parents - whether or not her brother is deaf is unknown.
NCIS was not Abby's first job. The short list in my guessed chronological order is: newspaper route (11 years old), road-kill collector, ski lift operator, telemarketer for kitchen knife sets (Sophmore year of HS or College), and medical waste incinerator operator. She has three undergraduate degrees from Louisiana State University in Sociology, Criminology, and Psychology and graduated with full honors. If Abby graduated High School early (around age 17, with college-track classes under her belt), then she could have finished all of her Undergraduate work before starting at NCIS, and possibly begun her graduate work. Abby earned her Master's Degree from Georgia State University in Criminology and Forensic Science, her Master's Thesis being on spontaneous human combustion. I think it's therefore entirely possible she finished her Master's Degree while working at NCIS, through mostly online classes, some practical credit hours earned at her job, and then traveling back to Georgia State a few times to present her Master's Thesis. No matter how she did it, she became regarded as a prodigy in her field within a few years of publishing articles related to her work with NCIS - the ultimate test of theory and practical application among scientists. Midway through Season 7 (2009), she implied that she had since earned her PhD in Chemistry.
Series Highlights
- Age 20 (Speculation): Abby joins the NCIS DC Branch Office as Forensic Specialist for Gibbs's Major Case Response Team, then comprised of Stanley "Stan" Burley, Vivian "Viv" Blackadder, and Brent Langer. Ducky was already Chief Medical Examiner for the NCIS DC Branch Office, and Gerald Jackson was his assistant in Autopsy. At some point, Stan Burley is moved to a Seahawk as an Agent Afloat, but Gibbs doesn't replace him. We know canonically that Abby started at NCIS before Tony and well after Ducky, we just don't know an exact date; in the series, she recognized Brent & Stan but Tony didn't.
- Age 21 (Canon): When Brent Langer moves to the FBI, Tony joins Gibbs's MCR Team alongside Viv. This is 3 years after Gibbs's undercover work in Europe with Jenny Shepherd, 9 years after he started working for NCIS in 1992 (the same year they changed from NIS to NCIS), and 10 years after the murder of his daughter and first wife when he was still a Marine Gunnery Sergeant.
- Age 22 (Pilot): The pilot episodes of NCIS appeared on the show JAG (same producer as NCIS) in two parts. Gibbs, Tony, Abby, Ducky, Viv, & Gerald (briefly) were all there for the case. Abby had to testify in court as part of the case, clearly unhappy about it. At the end of the pilot, Viv was fired.
- Age 23 (Season 1): Caitlin Todd joins the team at season start. Timothy McGee from the Norfolk Branch assists the team intermittently, and late in the season Jimmy Palmer joins as Ducky's assistant in the field - Gerald Jackson remains his assistant in the Autopsy floor at NCIS HQ. At the end of Season 1, an unknown man infiltrates Autopsy to retrieve something; takes Ducky, Gerald, & Caitlin hostage; and manages to escape with his item, leaving his hostages alive, but Gerald severely wounded. The assailant doesn't register in any of NCIS's facial recognition databases, much to Abby and Gibbs's frustration.
- Age 24 (Season 2): McGee joins the team to lead any technical / hacking / etc issues, with Abby on support rather than as another primary job. His reassignment was almost entirely due to the team needing help finding the "unknown man" from the end of last season. Near the end of Season 2, Tony nearly dies from an anthrax virus mailed to NCIS. Then, Caitlin dies in the line of duty, killed by the same mystery man, now known as Ari Haswari.
- Age 25 (Season 3): In the immediate aftermath of Caitlin's death, Jenny Shepherd takes over as Director of NCIS and brings in someone to help "find" Ari, not kill him: Ziva David. Ari had supposedly been playing loyal to a terrorist organization on behalf of the Mossad (allies to the CIA), but Gibbs feels Ari was playing Mossad on behalf of the terrorists. As far as anyone else knows, Gibbs kills Ari, and afterwards Gibbs trusts Ziva immensely for no good reason. In reality, she had shot Ari - her brother - when Gibbs's instinct about Ari proved true. At Caitlin's funeral, Abby observes a New Orleans tradition of playing a dirge before the funeral, but more upbeat jazz while walking away from the body. It wasn't until a little later that Ziva joins Gibbs' team as Caitlin's replacement - while officially retaining her status as a Mossad Liason. Abby doesn't warm to her at all at first. Jimmy Palmer becomes Ducky's new full-time assistant in the field and Autopsy, replacing Gerald. Abby was assigned an assistant - Charles "Chip" Sterling - by Dir. Shepherd, but he turned out to have a vendetta against Tony. Abby successfully fended him off when he tried to kill her, and afterwards Dir. Shepherd promised not to meddle with her working conditions again. Not long afterwards, someone else targeted Abby due to her involvement in a case that had gone to court; once again, she fended off her would-be murderer. At the end of Season 3, Gibbs went through a traumatic bout of temporary amnesia while on a case, and it eventually lead to a case resolution that Gibbs was not happy with - sacrificing a whole Navy ship in order to keep things out of the public eye. In protest, Gibbs quit, not saying a word to Abby, just kissing her cheek.
- Age 26 (Season 4): For the few months that Gibbs was in Mexico with his old boss Mike Franks, Tony was the Team Lead, and Michelle Lee joined as the team as the new "probie" (Probationary Special Agent, or newest field agent). Gibbs returns twice to help the team, and eventually returns permanently in the 3rd episode; Michelle Lee leaves the team when he rejoins. It's revealed that McGee wrote a book about everyone at NCIS under the pen-name Thom E. Gemcity. Abby has a relationship with Marty Pearson - a man with dwarfism - for about 11 weeks or so. She nearly died of carbon-monoxide poisoning from a 2nd-generation AI vehicle that was used to kill a navy code geek. Midway through the season, there's a case involving an arms dealer code-named La Grenouille. However, he's an informant for the CIA and NCIS is ordered to drop their case, so that it doesn't become another Ari incident. While Gibbs was in Mexico, Tony had been privately asked by Dir. Shepherd to go undercover, try to date La Grenouille's daughter, and eventually to meet the man himself. At the end of the season, as Tony finally meets him, Abby is enlisted for an off-the-record process by Director Jenny Shepherd and is bewildered as to why the chain of evidence wouldn't be important, as well as why she's not allowed to tell Gibbs about it.
- Age 27 (Season 5): At the start of the season, Tony is thought dead briefly after a bomb blows up his car. La Grenouille meets with Dir. Shepherd and pleas for asylum, but she refuses and someone kills him. This isn't discovered until several weeks later, when Leon Vance arrives from San Francisco to conduct an internal investigation into La Grenouille's death, on the testimony of La Grenouille's daughter. Gibbs thinks they're after Dir. Shepherd, the testimony targets Tony, and in the end CIA Agent Trent Kort (alias) takes the claim, complete with some official document showing the hit was sanctioned. Jenny Shepherd is killed working a hunch on an old case while in Los Angeles and, when the reason comes to light, Gibbs burns her house down to bury the case at last. A few days later, after Jenny Shepherd's funeral, she is formally replaced by Director Leon Vance, who uses Jenny Shepherd's behind-the-scenes work (interfering with the CIA's La Grenouille operations and then what lead to her death) as an excuse to break up Gibbs' team. Tony is assigned to a ship, Ziva is sent home since she'd been the Mossad liaison on Jenny's word, and McGee is assigned to the basement Cybercrime unit.
- Age 28 (Season 6): Abby misses the group so much that she counts the days they're apart, and her last count is 126 days as of the 1st episode in S6. Gibbs's new team comprises Michelle Lee back from the Legal Deptartment again, Daniel Keating from the Cybercrime unit, and a familiar face to Abby: Brent Langer from the FBI. Vance's ulterior motive in breaking up the team is revealed around the time they reunite: to catch a mole within NCIS. Notably, Abby is trusted so much by Gibbs not to be the mole that he and Vance include her in a plot to catch the real mole by pegging Abby as the primary suspect, luring the real mole into a false sense of security. A situation occurs in which Brent Langer is claimed to be the mole by Michelle Lee, and she kills him ostensibly in self-defense. Turns out the real mole is Michelle Lee, but she was being blackmailed with the life of her younger sister, and dies helping NCIS solve the case. At the end of Season 6, Ziva's split alliance between the Israeli Mossad and NCIS is tested. A Mossad officer named Michael Rivkin - whom Ziva was more or less dating, as much as secret agents can - had been operating under the radar for Mossad in the US, and for his crimes was under investigation by NCIS. Before the case can conclude, Tony ends up killing Rivkin, thus a major reason for Ziva's torn feelings. Mossad wins out as Ziva feels an obligation to finish the case Rivkin had started, thereby relinquishing her position with NCIS.
- Age 29 (Season 7): By the second episode of Season 7, Ziva is rescued from her failed Mossad mission in Africa by NCIS, rescinds her ties to Mossad, and starts working on becoming an American citizen so she can be a formal member of Gibbs's team. Tony and McGee get a few good laughs out of calling Ziva "probie" for awhile. Around the time of episode 7x09, Abby also visited Los Angeles to assist in a case ("Random on Purpose," NCIS: LA) where supposedly no forensic evidence was left at each crime scene.
SAMPLE JOURNAL POST;;
[text first]
I don't remember processing any hallucinogens today, so unless I got kidnapped again - the dating Spider-man analogy is way too appropriate these days - this is just way too weird. Maybe this is what Tokyo looks like nowadays - I mean, they're supposed to be surpassing us sometime soon.
Oh that thing that passed by me looked so freaking cool. I wish I had my camera - got a snapshot on my phone, but there's no substitute for quality source imagery. McGee would love this place - Techno Techvana practically. Good inspiration for another book. Tony'd probably crack a Metropolis joke or two. McGee might correct him it's more like Coruscant. Fifth Element was more my style, anyway.
[video test, after the text]
[up close & inquisitive tone of voice] Is it working? Awesome, looks like it's pretty similar. Well, uh - hello world! [wave, then matter-of-fact tone] Abby Sciuto here, NCIS Forensic Specialist. Would anyone like to tell me what the biohazardous material is going on here?
SAMPLE RP POST;;
"Wait! WAIT!"
Abby's style of running was more like a hobble in her 3-inch-heel boots. Part of it was she always ran like that, knees close together whenever she wore skirts. The other reason was that she was carrying her parasol umbrella and camera-phone in her right hand, her suitcase in her left, and her purse slung over her right shoulder. She thought she'd be heading for Mexico, but instead had wound up in this place. So far, she hadn't seen a single human being, so had taken to chasing some of the robots. Knowing McGee, he'd never believe what she was seeing here, so she wanted evidence, and possibly a hint as to where 'here' was.
After her 3rd attempt, she sat down on a curb with a sigh, all of her things falling around her. "Well, Abigail... we're not in Kansas anymore, that's for sure." She pulled out the little Blackberry-iPhone-comm device. She'd already figured out how to customize a wallpaper - a bullet shattering glass, or something - as well as find a default ringtone - a church bell's toll. She smirked to herself, then started going through the directories she hadn't explored yet. "Time to find out where." Soon, she was fully engrossed and oblivious to the fact that she wasn't actually in her lab back in DC, and focused exclusively on gathering as much intel as she could about her current whereabouts. "Gibbs will find me, or at least contact me first. And when he does, I need to be able to give him everything."
![[Here's a close-up glamour shot]](http://images2.fanpop.com/images/photos/3900000/Abby-abby-sciuto-3988733-1024-768.jpg){kind=link}
![[the kinds of things she wears to work]](http://pictures.leatherspride.com/albums/apr08/abby-headcase.jpg){kind=link}
